


A Child's Comfort

by lavenderlotion



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Adopted Jean Grey, Adoption, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Charles Erik Lehnsherr, Cuddling & Snuggling, Father Charles Xavier, Fear, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:56:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28171275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderlotion/pseuds/lavenderlotion
Summary: As Jean kept running her hands over the sheets and doing her very best to breathe quietly, just in case, she realized that she was scared.She didn’t like being scared.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Jean Grey & Charles Xavier, Jean Grey & Erik Lehnsherr
Comments: 20
Kudos: 54





	A Child's Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write a short story for my Writing Short Stories class and I repurposed it into fic! 
> 
> Big thank you to the lovely [librata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/librata) for editing this for me!!!

“Momma?” a voice—it sounded like her own voice, but it went on and on—asked. An echo, Mr. Erik had told her. The voice sounded like her voice but it echoed, just like she was standing at the very top of her new staircase and was yelling over the edge. She’d tried it, just a few nights ago, and heard her voice echo and echo and echo. 

Mr. Charles had done so, too, when she asked, but it was Mr. Erik who showed her the cool noise. 

“Momma?” she asked again, confused. She felt her face scrunch up, like Papa’s did when he was reading the newspaper. 

She started walking, dragging her blanket behind her now that it was in her hand. He fingers held it tightly, knowing that she didn’t want to let it go but not sure why. It felt important, like when Papa told her she had to be careful when she was helping him cook. She was  _ always _ really extra super careful, of course, because she loved helping Papa cook. 

She was really extra super careful now, holding her blanket as tightly as she could as she walked down the hall. 

The hall was  _ really _ big. She wasn’t sure why, but it felt like she needed to keep walking. There was something that she wanted to find...oh, maybe she and Papa were playing hide and seek! Playing hide and seek was her  _ favourite, _ like, ever. Her papa had been promising that they were going to play together soon, even though he seemed to always be working all the time. 

She kept walking, wondering what it was she was looking for. Maybe she just couldn’t remember counting to ten. Sometimes she forgot to count, so maybe she did that this time! That would be okay, though. She knew that Papa wouldn’t be too mad at her if that was the case, since he never was. 

Just as she was walking down  _ another _ long hallway that seemed to never, ever stop, there was a doorway! She frowned at it for a moment, because she had just been looking and hadn’t seen a doorway but...now there was one. Hm. Maybe she just hadn’t seen the doorway because she was so focused on finding Papa?

Now that the doorway was there, however, she stepped up to it. The door handle was  _ so high, _ and as she looked at it, it seemed to get higher and higher and higher! She didn’t remember the door handles being that high earlier, not when the nice lady from the building she didn’t want to go back to had brought her to her new home to stay at forever. Sure, the door handles were higher than they were at her old home, but they weren’t  _ this _ high. 

“You can reach it, Jean,” she whispered to herself. Momma told her that when she wasn’t sure if she could do something, she should tell herself that she could do it. If she told herself that she could do it and  _ really _ believed it, then there wasn’t anything that she couldn’t do. “You really, really can!”

With those words, she reached up and up and  _ up, _ and her arm kept going and going and  _ going, _ like it was going to go on forever just like the long halls. Then, just when it seemed impossible, she was finally able to wrap her fingers around the door handle and pull the door open! She almost cheered, but something kept her from being too loud, so she cheered on the inside where no one was able to hear her. 

Now that she had pulled the door open, she was able to look inside. The room was really dark, and she didn’t like it. Even though she was a big girl, she didn’t like the dark. It wasn’t because she was scared of monsters—monsters really just needed more friends, and they really weren’t very scary—it was because she couldn’t see what was ahead of her. She liked knowing where she was going, but when it was dark it was  _ impossible _ to know where she was going and she was always scared that she was going to get lost. 

Before she could be too worried, the light turned on! She let out a happy noise as she pushed the door the rest of the way open, smiling wide when she realized she was in Momma’s bedroom and that Momma was standing there too, right next to her bed. Momma didn’t look at her when she came in, and she tried to say “Hi” but suddenly she couldn’t hear anything. 

Momma was putting clothes into a suitcase. 

Jean didn’t know that Momma was going on a trip, and she tilted her head as she tried to think of why Momma would be packing. 

“What’s going on?” she asked quietly, in a little whisper. She held her blanket in both hands in front of her, like it would protect her if she needed it. 

“I need to leave,” Momma said. She still didn’t turn around. 

“Where are you going?” Jean asked, but something felt really bad. “Can I come?”

“No.”

“Why...why not Momma?”

Momma shook her head. Her hair, which was in pretty curls, bounced around her head. Jean took a few steps into the room, dragging her feet in a way that Papa always told her not to do because it wasn’t good. She tried really, really hard not to drag her feet, but there was a feeling growing bigger and bigger inside her tummy that she  _ really _ didn’t like, not at all. 

Momma didn’t say anything, but she shook her head again. 

“Momma?”

“Goodbye, my little ladybug,” Momma told her, but she didn’t understand. She didn’t want Momma to go away! “I am so sorry, but I have to go.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, sniffling. She didn’t like to cry, because whenever she cried her Momma seemed sad, so she sniffled and sniffled so she wouldn’t cry. 

Momma  _ already _ seemed sad, Jean didn’t want to make her sadder. 

“I know you don’t, ladybug,” Momma told her, putting more and more clothes into her bag. 

“It doesn’t make any sense, Momma,” Jean whispered, looking at the suitcase that already had all of Momma’s pretty church-going clothes. “Why are you leaving?”

“I know it doesn’t, Jeanie,” Momma told her quietly, looking back at her for the first time. 

Momma was crying. 

Jean didn’t like it when Momma cried, so she tried to run over and give Momma a hug but she couldn’t! She tried and tried and  _ tried _ to run but her legs wouldn’t move her. Instead of moving her, they just stood still!

“Momma!” she called, not knowing what was going on but not liking it. Her tummy felt weird and her chest felt heavy, like it did if Auntie Carol's cat slept on her when she had sleepovers.

“I need to go now, baby,” Momma told her, and she zipped up her suitcase. Quickly, she looked into Momma’s open closet and found it empty, with no clothes at all, which must have meant that Momma took all her clothes with her. 

That wasn’t good!

Jean didn’t want her Momma to go, but her Momma wasn’t listening to her! She kept yelling for Momma to stay, but Momma waved at her like she was going to leave, like she waved at her when Jean went to school, and she didn’t know why. Why did Momma have to leave? Why did she put all her pretty clothes into a bag? It didn’t make any sense! Momma had never left before, not like Papa sometimes did for a few days because he had to work, and she didn’t understand! 

She kept calling out but Momma wasn’t answering her. Maybe Momma couldn’t hear her and that’s why Momma wasn’t answering her? Jean didn’t know. She didn’t know anything at all, and she just wanted it to stop. She didn’t want Momma to leave, not at all- _ at all!  _

Suddenly Momma wasn’t there at all. The room was empty, and Momma was already gone! Jean didn’t understand what was happening. Where did Momma go? Did she leave? Was she going to come back? She couldn’t see her Momma, and then she couldn’t see anything at all! 

Jean’s eyes shot open as she took a huge, gasping breath, waving her arms around and feeling them slide over really soft sheets. The sheets were damp and they clung to her arms and legs, and she realized that she was dreaming! Only, as Jean moved her hands across the sheets to feel how soft they were, she remembered that her Momma, and Papa, really  _ had _ left, and they were never coming back. 

Oh no. She didn’t like thinking about that very much. Not at all, because it always made her very sad and then she couldn’t stop being sad because she knew they were never coming back. Auntie Carol had told her that, before Jean went to live with her new parents. Auntie Carol said that they were in a better place now, but Jean didn’t understand that. 

How could that place be so good if she wasn’t allowed to be there? 

That didn’t seem like a very good place, not at all. She didn’t think that Momma  _ or _ Papa wanted to leave her, which means they couldn’t be somewhere better if they didn’t even want to be there. Jean didn’t understand it, but the nice lady who helped her move all her things to her new house told her that it was okay not to understand. She also said lots and lots of other things that Jean didn’t really pay attention to, but she  _ did _ remember her saying it was okay not to understand. 

She didn’t understand now. 

Now, she felt scared, because her room was  _ so _ dark. There wasn’t any light from the hallway, like there was in her old home. The light in the hallway in her own home used to keep her from being scared, but there was no light in this home. Maybe it was because her new dads didn’t know that she didn’t like the dark, but...they  _ should _ know! Momma and Papa knew! Why did she have to tell these new people that she didn’t like the dark?

Jean  _ really _ didn’t like the dark, but she tried her very best to pretend that it wasn’t as dark as it was.

Maybe...her new dads had said that she could go to them with anything. She wasn’t sure if they meant that or not. They had told her, when she first got to her new home, that they had never been parents before but were really excited to have her, and would do anything to make sure she felt safe and comfortable. 

She should have told them that she didn’t like the dark. 

Even though Jean tried, she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep, not with all the things that she couldn’t see in the dark. She was so,  _ so _ tired, but as she lay there, she just felt more and more awake. Sleeping wasn’t going to do her any good now. As Jean kept running her hands over the sheets and doing her very best to breathe quietly, just in case, she realized that she was  _ scared. _

She didn’t like being scared. 

Maybe...sometimes, when she had  _ really _ bad dreams, Momma and Papa would let her sleep with them. Papa was the best cuddler in the whole wide world, and he was able to make her feel nice and safe which meant that she would be able to fall back asleep. But Papa was gone. Papa was never going to be able to cuddle her again, which made her really,  _ really _ sad, but...maybe her new dads would want to cuddle her? 

Jean took a really deep breath and tried to be strong like her Papa used to tell her she needed to be. She could be strong. If there were monsters in this house, then she would be able to fight them! If she needed to, she’d be able to fight them in the name of the moon, like Sailor Moon and her Sailor Scouts did. She wasn’t a Sailor Scout, but she’d seen the movie  _ hundreds _ of times, so she would be okay. 

Yes, she told herself firmly as she nodded her head to make it more real, she would be okay. 

Slipping out of bed was easy. Her dads had brand-new slippers for her to wear. They were very pretty and  _ very _ soft, and they felt like little clouds as she slipped her feet into them. She knew that there weren’t any monsters under the bed, because she had checked before her dads came to tuck her in so that she’d be able to fall asleep. She hadn’t thought to ask them to check the rest of the house! 

The house was  _ so big, _ way bigger than her old house. As Jean walked on her very tiptoes through her room, Jean was worried that she was going to get lost! What if she couldn’t find their room, and she had to walk and walk just like in her dream! She didn’t want to walk and walk, she wanted cuddles! 

Slowly, Jean turned the door handle to her bedroom door. She didn’t need to reach and reach and reach, because the door handle was where it was supposed to be and it didn’t move. She pulled the door open slowly, peeking out to make sure there were no monsters in the hall that she would have to fight. 

Jean still didn’t know if she wanted to go, but, when she looked back at her room, she didn’t want to stay, either. It was a hard decision, and she thought very, very hard about what she wanted to do and what would be better. In the end, she decided that it was better to try and fail, than not try, which is something Papa used to tell her all the time. 

When she was sure that there weren’t any monsters, she opened the door all the way and then closed it behind her, just to be safe. 

Unlike in her dream, it didn’t take her very long to walk down the hall. Her new dads had told her that they wanted to be close. Even though they had a  _ huge _ house that they could live in, they said that they wanted to make sure they were right down the hall, in case anything happened. She wasn’t sure if they meant a bad dream, but she had to hope they did because she really didn’t want to go back to her room, at least not alone. 

The hallway was dark. She didn’t like it, so she walked  _ really _ fast without running. Mr. Charles had told her that it wasn’t safe to run in the halls, and she wanted to do everything they asked her, because she really didn’t want them to decide that they didn’t want her and give her away. She knew that Momma and Papa had wanted her, but she still didn’t know these people very well, and she was sure that could happen. One time, Momma had got a new pillow that she really didn’t like so she brought it back. 

Jean didn’t want to be brought back!

Their door was open when she got to it, just a teeny tiny crack. It wasn’t big enough for her to see through, not even when she got really, really close and pressed her nose into it. Jean stepped back with a frown, putting her hands on her hips to think. The door was open. If the door was open, she was probably allowed to go in. They wouldn’t keep their door open if they didn’t want her to go in, right? So if their door was open that  _ had _ to mean that they wanted her to go in. 

That really made a lot of sense. It was probably true since it made so much sense.

Jean still wasn't sure if she should go in. Yes, she wanted cuddles, but maybe they wouldn’t want to cuddle her? Maybe they just said that they would do anything to make her feel safe, but they didn’t mean it. So far her new dads hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true, but she didn’t know if she could trust them yet. She’d only known them for a couple of days! It was hard to trust people she didn’t know. 

They said that they would keep their door open for her and they did, even if they didn’t have to. Maybe that meant that they really would be there for her, if she needed them? 

Well, she wouldn’t know unless she tried! 

The door didn’t make any noise when she pushed it open. That was really, really good, because she didn’t want to wake them up if they were sleeping, just because she couldn’t sleep. Even her Momma had sometimes got upset when she woke her up, and she really didn’t want to make her new dads upset at all. 

Once the door was open enough for her to slip inside, she tiptoed her way across their room. It was like hers, but  _ really _ big. They had a bed against the wall across from the door, but it wasn’t tucked into the corner like hers was. It was in the middle of the room, and she could see a little table beside it from where she was standing. 

She walked quickly across the room. Her slippers were padded and really soft, and they didn’t make very much noise at all, which was very handy. She didn’t want to wake either of them up just yet. Really, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to wake them up at all. She stopped right beside their bed and peered through the darkness until her eyes adjusted. 

Mr. Charles was sleeping really deeply. Their bedroom was  _ really _ dark and she didn’t like it. She had come to their room, so it seemed silly to leave without...something. They had said she could come to them  _ anytime, _ and they really seemed like they meant it. Maybe they wouldn’t be mad?

Like she thought before, there was only one way to find out. 

“Mr. Charles,” she whispered, watching the man’s face very closely. It didn’t change, so she tried whispering again. “Mr. Charles?”

There was still no change, so she poked him. 

Then, because it  _ still _ didn’t change, she poked him again. 

“Wah?” Mr. Charles’s voice was really very deep and growly, which wasn’t how he normally sounded. He must have been  _ very _ sleepy.

It was kind of scary, because she hadn’t ever heard him sound like that before, but he  _ looked _ just like Mr. Charles, so she didn’t let it bother her too much. 

“Mr. Charles.”

“Jean?” Mr. Charles asked. He blinked a lot and then scrubbed his face. “Jean, are you alright?”

She didn’t know what to tell him. She didn’t want him to be mad at her for waking him up. Maybe she should just go back but...he was looking at her with a very intense frown, like  _ he _ was upset, but he didn’t seem mad at all. 

Jean wasn’t sure what to do. Momma always told her not to lie. Telling him the truth would be the best, but she didn’t want to. 

She breathed deeply. She had to be strong. 

“No,” she whispered, being strong and not feeling alright at all. 

Mr. Charles blinked a few more times and moved around a little. She could hear Mr. Erik snoring behind him, since he was snoring  _ really _ loud, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She wanted her Momma and her Papa and they weren’t  _ here, _ and instead, she had parents she didn’t know. 

“I...am very sorry to hear that, darling.” Mr. Charles had a really nice voice now that he wasn’t sleeping. It was soft, and it made her feel safe. 

“Me too, Mr. Charles,” she agreed, hugging her arms around herself. It was colder than it was in bed, and her nightie wasn’t very warm. 

“Hm, well that won’t do,” he said, then he scratched his chin. 

Jean giggled a little because he made a funny face. He tapped his forehead like he was thinking, and then he looked around the room. Jean didn’t know what he was looking for, because it was really late at night and Mr. Erik was sleeping behind him, but he looked funny doing it. 

Then Mr. Charles looked back at her, looking very serious. 

“Would you like a hug?” Mr. Charles asked, surprising her. She thought about it for a short second and then nodded her head very quickly. 

Mr. Charles moaned and groaned as he moved about, which made her giggle again because it was silly. She didn’t know what he was doing until he moved and lifted her right up! Jean squealed, laughing even more when Mr. Charles tucked her against his chest and squeezed her tight. Her slippers fell off when he pulled her onto the bed, and he rolled over so she was in the middle. 

Still giggling, she moved around until she was lying on her back and looking over at Mr. Charles. Mr. Erik was right beside her too, no longer snoring but laying with his eyes closed. She wasn’t sure if he was still sleeping, but Mr. Charles—and then her—had made a lot of noise, so she didn’t think so. 

“Was it a bad dream?” 

“Yes,” Jean whispered, looking down at her hands. “How did you know?”

“Erik has bad dreams,” Mr. Charles whispered. Jean looked over very quickly, but Mr. Erik still had his eyes closed. “Sometimes he wakes up and needs a hug, too.”

Oh, that wasn’t good. Jean  _ hated _ having bad dreams, and she definitely didn’t want anyone else to have bad dreams either. Especially not Mr. Erik, who carried her on her shoulders and showed her how to make her voice do an echo!

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mr. Charles asked quietly, reaching out and holding her hand. 

Jean considered the question really seriously, squeezing his fingers tightly.  _ Did _ she want to talk about it? Sometimes when she had bad dreams, Papa would snuggle her and tell her that talking about it would make it better, but she wasn’t so sure anything would make her feel better now. 

“I had a dream that Momma was leaving,” she whispered quietly. Mr. Erik made a noise from behind her that sounded sad, which meant that he was awake, and then he wrapped her up in a  _ big _ hug and pulled her right up to his warm chest. 

“That sounds like a really bad dream,  _ Schatz,” _ Mr. Erik whispered. The last word was a different language that he spoke...German, if Jean remembered correctly. 

Jean thought it was  _ so cool _ that her new dad could speak languages other than English! She really wanted to learn it one day, because then she could talk to even more people and make even more friends! 

Jean decided she didn’t want to think about her dream anymore. Momma and Papa were gone. Talking about her dream wouldn’t make it any better because it was  _ true.  _

So instead she cuddled back into Mr. Erik, who hugged her  _ even _ tighter! “You are very warm. Like a teddy bear because you’re cuddly, but like a real bear because you’re so warm. ”

Mr. Erik laughed, but it didn’t sound happy. “Charles loves it in the winter.”

“I’m sorry that you had a bad dream, little one,” Mr. Charles told her. She liked it when he called her little one. It was really funny, because when he called her that for the very first time, Mr. Erik had then called  _ him _ that too. “How can we make it better?”

Jean took a really deep breath and thought  _ really _ hard about what to say. She knew what she  _ wanted _ to say, but...did she want to say it? What if they got upset that she wanted more? They’d already given her so much! But...Mr. Charles sounded like he really wanted to know, so really quietly she said, “There’s no light from the hall in my bedroom and the dark is really scary.”

Mr. Charles hummed, and then he asked, “What if we got you a nightlight? There is a plug by the door, and we could put it there?”

Jean thought about it. A nightlight would be good because then she could keep the hallway monsters out—there was  _ no way _ Mr. Charles and Mr. Erik could look through the  _ whole _ house for monsters—but she still wouldn’t have to worry about the dark! And that way, if she had another bad dream, she would have a light and wouldn’t be scared. 

“I think that would help,” she told him quietly, hoping he’d be okay with that.

“Got it. Get a nightlight. Now, is it time for little girls to sleep? Because it’s time for old men to sleep,” asked Mr. Erik, who gave her a squeeze when she giggled at the silly question. 

Even though it was silly, she really thought about it. When she first met them, Mr. Charles told her that if they asked her something, they wanted a real answer. Even though Mr. Erik was just asking her if she wanted to go to sleep, she really thought about it because they probably wanted a real answer just like they said they did. 

“I think I can go to sleep now,” she told them after a little while of thinking. “But...only right here.”

Her chest didn’t feel so heavy, and her eyes weren’t burning like they did when she needed to cry. She already felt a lot better than she had when she first got into the room.

Mr. Erik was a really, really good cuddler. Not as good as Papa, who was the best in the whole world, but maybe a very close second. Momma and Papa weren’t going to come back. Jean was  _ always _ going to miss them, she just knew it, but...it wouldn’t be okay, but maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. 

As she snuggled closer to Mr. Erik and felt Mr. Charles pet her hair and kiss her head, she thought that it really would be okay. She might not have her parents, but she had these parents, and so far, they really seemed to care about her. 

Maybe...maybe things really would be okay.


End file.
